Surprise! The Web’s Troll King Is a Hit With The Trump Set

It was called the America First Unity Rally, but you could be forgiven for missing the part where the unity was supposed to come in.

In fact, as Breitbart writer and self-proclaimed “supervillain of the internet” Milo Yiannopoulos stood on a stage at the small riverside gathering in Cleveland yesterday, he described political incorrectness as a sort of life mission, even a spiritual calling.

“Political correctness is a disease that is now killing people,” said Yiannopoulos, dressed all in black under the powerful July sun. “I try to fight it by being as outrageous as possible, as offensive as possible.”

Election 2016

He went on to illustrate the point by saying that transgender people have “a brain disease;” that “it’s perfectly rational to be terrified” of Islamic people; and that “the left is a cancer that you need to eradicate.” When one eager fan near the front yelled out, “You need to die on your feet or live on your knees,” Yiannopoulos, who is openly gay, replied, “Well, I do live on my knees. But that’s all right, as long as I’m not facing Mecca.”

So yeah, pretty offensive! And not altogether, er, unifying, with one big exception: Yiannopoulos’ rant did unite the relatively small crowd that had gathered to pledge their support for Donald Trump. And that’s a good thing for Trump at least, because at that very moment, the prospect of his candidacy was inspiring a full-on insurrection inside the arena where the Republican National Convention was taking place.

As Yiannopoulos gleefully dismantled the norms of common courtesy at the waterfront rally, several state delegations were breaking with tradition and demanding a new vote on the party’s convention rules in hopes of unseating Trump as the party’s presumptive nominee. The effort failed for the umpteenth time, but not before revealing a deeply divided Republican party to the world as the floor fight streamed to the world on social media and cable news.

Yiannopoulos’ address illustrates just why that divide exists: the Republican party can’t control its trolls.

Past Unity

Throughout this election cycle, Trump supporters and Trump himself have taken online trolling to a new and shocking level. But when it comes to trolls, Yiannopoulos, who made a name for himself during the Gamergate debacle, is king. And the audience at the waterfront, dressed in shirts that read “Hillary for Prison” and “9/11 Was An Inside Job,” treated him as such. They huddled around Yiannopoulos during his grand entrance and as he spoke, iPhones in the air, eager to grab a shot of a man most only know from the Internet.

As he spoke, Yiannopoulos thanked his faithful followers, calling them “angels” as they showered him with praise.

You could be forgiven for missing the part where the unity was supposed to come in.

“You’re goddamn beautiful,” roared one.

“Thank you, angel. I do own a mirror, but it’s nice to be reminded,” Yiannopoulos replied.

Afterward, some attendees would say it’s Yiannopoulos’ bravado and bluntness that draws them in, the very same qualities they admire in the candidate Yiannopoulos was there to support. “Political correctness, like he said, is taken way too far,” said Adam Keffer, a 32-year-old engineer from Columbus, Ohio.

“He’s outspoken, he says it how it is, and he doesn’t care if he hurts other people’s feelings,” said Tyler Smith, a 30-year-old veteran and machinist from Leavittsburg, Ohio. “Right now, we’re past feelings.”

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How Poker Theory Explains Ted Cruz’s Convention Speech

Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images

Politics has always been a particularly brutal form of blood sport. That’s why so many analysts have turned to game theory to explain this year’s otherwise-inexplicable GOP primary. Why are the non-Trump candidates attacking each other, instead of the frontrunner? It’s a collective-action problem. Why isn’t Kasich dropping out? Look to the volunteer’s dilemma. Why is Peter Thiel speaking at the convention? Perhaps his favorite chess opening can serve as a metaphor. Game theory can have limited explanatory value, but in this particular election—when you can practically see Paul Ryan conducting real-time cost-beneift analyses as he determines how to respond to Trump’s latest gaffe—it’s been a useful lens.

At first glance, Ted Cruz’s decision to use his prime-time speaking slot at last night’s convention to sabotage Trump-—refusing to endorse and urging his listeners to “vote your conscience” before getting booed off the stage–would seem similarly hard to understand. While most of his fellow also-rans have come to at least an uncomfortable truce with their belligerent nominee (presumably in the hopes of staying in the GOP’s good graces until the next election cycle), Cruz alienated his entire party, to say nothing of the Trump fans in attendance, for what would appear to be a very limited upside. To be sure, his stance may be a matter of pride or conviction. But let’s just assume that it’s cold-hearted calculation and cynical exploitation. It’s probably a safer bet.

In poker, the player who is last to bet has the most power, because he can see everyone else’s decision before making his move.

With that in mind, think of the GOP speakers as poker players. Trump has led the betting, and they are all holding bad cards. How will they respond? Poker pro Phil Hellmuth once reduced all poker players to five distinct types: the mouse, jackal, elephant, lion, and eagle. We don’t need to discuss all of them here, but suffice it to say that Trump is a jackal—he always bets big, regardless of the hand he’s holding. Jackals can be difficult to play against because, as in Nixon’s Mad Man theory, they don’t abide by the rational rules of poker. This makes it hard to tell if they’re bluffing, but it also makes them vulnerable to an opponent who catches good cards and isn’t afraid to bet them, because they’ll never fold but just keep raising until they’ve bet all their chips on a losing hand. But so far, Trump’s opponents have acted as mice: fundamentally weak players who are too timid to take a risk on less-than-perfect cards and fold against a more aggressive player. When mice face jackals, they tend to wait too long to make a move while the jackal slowly eats up their ante bets. Eventually they are forced to make a last-gasp bet with bad cards before they run out of chips. That’s what happened to Rubio in the primary, when in desperation he resorted to making jokes about Trump’s penis.

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That’s more or less what has happened during the convention as well. Paul Ryan, Rubio, and Chris Christie have all concluded that Trump’s nomination gives him a strong hand—the institutional support of the Republican party and a shot at the presidency—leaving them with little alternative but to fall in line. Say what you will about Ted Cruz, but he isn’t a mouse. If anything, he’s a jackal himself, willing to bet on government shutdowns and insult his own fellow senators to further his own political prospects. Those bets don’t always work out for him; his habit of alienating potential allies left many of his fellow GOP senators unwilling to support him against Trump at a moment when they might have helped him win the nomination.

In this case, though, Cruz is taking a less reckless approach—more like Hellmuth’s lion, who isn’t afraid to bet good-but-not-invincible cards, especially against a jackal. Cruz seems to think that Trump’s hand isn’t as strong as he’s presenting. His decision to challenge Trump at his own convention is the equivalent of raising. Cruz is betting that Trump will fail, in which case he will be left holding the better hand than his remaining opponents—a record of speaking up against a terrible candidate, instead of meekly acquiescing.

There’s one more factor that might explain Cruz’s decision—his place in the speaking order. If Ryan, Christie, Rubio, or any of the other speakers had made a similar move, Cruz would have had less to gain. He wouldn’t be the only politician to receive kudos for his courage. It might still have been worth it, but he would have been effectively splitting the pot, sharing the spoils. But because he went last, he knew he alone would be making this bet. In poker, that’s called playing your position—the player who is last to bet has the most power, because he can see everyone else’s decision before making his move.

Maybe Cruz mis-bet. Perhaps Trump will go on to win the election and enjoy a successful presidency, in which case history won’t look kindly on Cruz’s act of sabotage. But the odds are not with him. The New York Timessuggests he has only a 25 percent chance of winning the White House, which means Cruz has a 75 percent chance of becoming the only Republican convention speaker who ends up on the right side of history. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that Cruz took the bet. It’s more surprising that he was the only one to do so.

How the Republican Convention Fends Off Hackers

The RNC’s cybersecurity command center.Issie Lapowsky

Just a few blocks away from the Quicken Loans Arena where the Republican National Convention is taking place, past the barricaded streets being guarded by police officers, beyond the Secret Service checkpoint, down the escalator of the Cleveland Convention Center, deep in the belly of the building, you’ll find a nondescript set of cubicles and a snack table set off to the side of a vast empty space. There sit a handful of geeks with laptops.

This digital age Dilbert cartoon is the RNC’s cybersecurity command center, and while it may look as boring as any windowless office space in America, it’s one of the most important places in all of Cleveland this week. That handful of geeks, who work for cybersecurity firms like ForeScout and Dark Cubed, are the RNC’s only hope against hackers during what is a high-profile week for the most divisive presidential candidate in recent memory.

The task of securing the convention this year is tougher than any other convention before it, because technology has changed so dramatically in four years. “The threat has certainly evolved,” says Katherine Gronberg, vice president of government affairs for ForeScout. And though the company hasn’t managed a convention in the past, she says, “I’m going to go out on a limb and make the assumption there are a lot more devices.” And that means more hardware for her team to keep safe.

There are thousands of devices owned by the RNC staff alone, not to mention the sprawling network of journalists and contractors who rely on the RNC’s Internet network as well. So how does the team keep those tools secure?

“At its most boring, it’s network monitoring. It’s real cyber hygiene stuff,” says Gronberg. Exciting? Maybe not. But it’s essential. ForeScout’s technology continuously monitors the network for devices that look suspicious. When it finds one, it either keeps monitoring its activity or toss it off the network instantly depending on the perceived threat.

Meanwhile, Dark Cubed’s team tracks the broader network. Its dashboard surfaces every domain and every IP address that touches the network, when it was first seen and last seen, how many times it’s touched the network, and what its threat level is. “That lets us triage and prioritize,” says Vince Crisler, CEO of Dark Cubed. And there’s plenty to triage, like, for instance, one IP address out of China that Crisler says has been “slowly probing the network to see if there are any holes.”

One source of comfort for the RNC and its security team, says chief information officer Max Everett, is that the convention itself isn’t a data-rich target for hackers like, say, a bank or even the government. “We don’t have a lot of information directly that nation states want,” Everett says. “The vast majority of our risk is around disruption.” By that he means, hackers who are just in it for the glory. Or the lulz.

But there’s another risk: the Wi-Fi network used by delegates and members of the media inside the arena is completely open, which makes it insecure, Everett admits. Yesterday, a security firm called Avast Software published the results of an experiment it conducted in Cleveland, in which it set up a series of fake open Wi-Fi networks around the arena to see how many people would sign on and expose their personal information. In one day, 1,200 did, and 68.3 percent of their identities were exposed.

The open RNC Wi-Fi network is something the stadium provided to the convention, and while Everett says his team augmented it with some security precautions, he admits, “Open WiFi is open WiFi.” Whether it’s at a coffee shop or a national political event, it opens you up to hackers.

“When you’re on an open WiFi you need to be smart,” he says. “Have patch systems, use VPN.”

Which sounds like sensible advice—for the tech savvy. But considering one delegate today asked if WIRED is one of those “webzines,” it may be a lot to ask.

Cruz Diehards Still Don’t Forgive Trump for Those Tweets

Ted Cruz after checking the podium, ahead of his speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 20, 2016.Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images

It wasn’t the first time Donald Trump interrupted Ted Cruz. But it might have been the most over-the-top—literally.

Today, hours before he is to take the stage at the Republican National Convention, the Texas Senator arrived in Cleveland to rally his primary season supporters at a waterfront thank-you party. In many ways, it was exactly like any stump speech Cruz has delivered over the last year: oversized cowboy hats, Texas flag t-shirts, free novelty cups bearing Cruz’s name. Except just as Cruz uttered the words, “Our party now has a nominee,” a massive Trump plane soared overhead. “That was pretty well orchestrated,” Cruz said, laughing off the ominous coincidence.

But if Cruz had planned to use that moment to talk about unifying around the nominee, the crowd stopped him short with their chorus of boos. Cruz’s true red-white-and-blue supporters were glad he didn’t endorse Trump and hope he doesn’t tonight. Many of them still can’t forgive Trump for those Heidi Cruz tweets.

“If you’re married and another man trashes you publicly, what would you expect your husband to do?” Kammer says “Think about it that way.”

Kammer says he plans to vote in November, just not for president. “I’m going to leave that space blank on the ballot,” he says. If Cruz does endorse Trump, Kammer adds, that would diminish his family’s support for Cruz in the future. “We’re not going to ever endorse someone or work for someone who endorses Trump,” he says.

Kammer wasn’t the only one who felt that way. “I don’t want him to say, ‘Please vote for Trump,'” says Lillian Nolan, an alternate delegate from Fon du Lac, Wisconsin. And yet, she said, despairingly, “There’s no plan B. I just think it would be hard for me to sleep at night right now to vote for Trump.”

All eyes will be on Cruz tonight as he takes the stage at the convention, where it’s still unclear whether or not he’ll signal support for his one-time adversary. (Update: He didn’t.) But if his waterfront rally is any indication, Cruz might have a better chance of securing his political future if he doesn’t endorse Trump. Cruz’s base views his steadfast, uncompromising conservatism as his strength, and they fear a Trump endorsement could damage his future in the Republican party.

And make no mistake: Cruz plans to have a future. Amid chants of “2020! 2020!” Cruz spoke much like he had on the stump. He stuck around for nearly an hour after his talk to shake hands and pose for selfies with supporters, several of whom had badges around their necks with a picture of Trump and the word “Loser” emblazoned on it. Complete with a live band blaring country tunes, the event had all the trappings of a campaign stop. And maybe that’s what it was, just four years early—or a year too late.

At the Republican Convention, Millennials Search for Signs of the Future

Delegates on the floor on the RNC on July 18, 2016.Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

In many ways, the Republican Convention has fully embraced the future.

Look up inside the Quicken Loans Arena, and you’ll see four immense screens projecting Twitter and Facebook posts about the event. Down on the ground, delegates use Facebook Live to give their friends and followers a front row seat to the action. There’s a YouTube stage in the Media Center, a Facebook lounge next to the arena, and a Twitter bar serving up free drinks and snacks just down the road. Steps away from the stadium’s entrance, you can strap on an Oculus and be digitally transported to the top of a skyscraper.

But if you are one of the convention’s rare millennial attendees, it can be tough to see the Republican Convention as emblematic of your future, let alone the party’s. For many young Republicans this year, both the party’s platform and its newly crowned nominee, Donald Trump, are relics of the past.

For many young Republicans this year, both the party’s platform and its newly crowned nominee, Donald Trump, are relics of the past.

“I think this whole convention can just be summed up as a reckoning from the older generation,” says Charlie Kirk, the 22-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, an advocacy group for young conservatives. “This is a generational, this-is-our-last-chance type of thing.”

If you’ve been watching the first few days of the slugfest that is the Republican Convention, you might have seen Kirk on stage Tuesday, trying to convince the audience that the Republican party is not just for “old rich white men.” And yet, even Kirk, the lone millennial not related to Trump who was chosen to speak at Trump’s coronation, says he is “not the biggest Donald Trump fan in the world.”

He wasn’t the only young conservative in the arena who felt that way, either. As states cast their votes for Trump on the convention floor last night, young delegates staged silent (and not so silent) protests against the eventual nominee—a chant of “Rubio!” from one Alaska delegate, another New Hampshire delegate fist pumping in support.

Kirk started Turning Point when he was 18 to spread the conservative message on high school and college campuses, but in a lot of ways, he says, Trump’s candidacy makes his task tougher. “People are are going to brand us and loop us in that bucket like, ‘Oh, you’re the Donald Trump group,'” says Kirk, who does plan to vote for Trump despite his misgivings. “We’re going to have to fight back against that.”

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Cleveland, Ohio, on Monday, July 18, 2016. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Polls show that about three in five millennials want to see a Democrat in the White House next year. That could be construed as the legacy of President Obama, a candidate who received stunning support among young voters. But dig deeper into the data, and you’ll see that the last year alone has cost the Republican party precious support among this demographic. Since spring 2016, the most recent Harvard Youth Poll shows the share of young voters who want a Republican to become president has dropped from 40 to 33 percent.

There’s good reason for that. While Trump’s main campaign promise is that he’ll build a wall on the southern border and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, 76 percent of millennials oppose a border wall and say that immigrants are a national strength. And that may be partly to do with the fact that millennials are a far more diverse generation.

The Republican party has also adopted one of the most socially conservative platforms in recent memory. It includes language about conversion therapy for LGBT people and calls marriage between one man and one woman “the basis of a free society.” Meanwhile, nearly three quarters of millennials support same-sex marriage. They’re also more likely to be pro-choice than their parents’ generation.

For many young voters, says Patrick Ruffini, co-founder of the Republican strategy firm Echelon Insights, “The social issues are a deal-breaker.”

This rightward jolt is surprising. Building a base with millennials was one of the chief goals of the party’s Growth and Opportunity Project report, published after the 2012 loss. But, Ruffini says, “That is not getting better this cycle.”

But it’s not just the focus on social issues that’s alienating young people. The deep-seated sense of anger among older Republicans that has fueled Trump’s rise doesn’t sit well with them, either. “Trump has spoken to a big part of the demographic that was angry about the system,” says Amanda Owens, 25. “I think it’s because they see a life they had, and it’s not the same. Millennials are idealistic and adaptive and more open to change.”

Owens founded the online network Future Female Leaders in 2012 specifically because she saw a lack of spaces for young, conservative women to share their beliefs. What started as a Twitter feed during Owens’ senior year of college has now grown into a full-fledged media and merchandise business that employs 100 young writers. But rather than play on the fear that permeates her party, Owens rallies her base with beer koozies, elephant print skirts, and a cheeky motto: “We need more high heels on the ground.”

Amanda Owens (right) with members of the online network she founded, Future Female LeadersIssie Lapowsky

Future Female Leaders tries to stay above the political fray. But some of its members admit it’s been a challenge at times to stand behind a candidate who stokes so much nostalgia for a time gone by. “There were so many fresh faces on the scene,” says 21-year-old Victoria Feldmeier, a senior at University of Massachusetts Amherst. “So the fact that we ended up here, I just think it’s funny, cause my grandparents and parents swore up and down it was going to be Trump.”

“I thought it was a joke at first,” says Kaitlin Owens, 21, of the choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton. “I think that older generations are just really upset. Obviously we get the brunt of it, but it’s our parents and grandparents who are really upset.”

What these young voters want to hear from their party leaders, they say, is not where they stand on the country’s most divisive social issues, but on its economic ones. “I’m about to graduate college. I need a job,” says Feldmeier. “I’m like, is there going to be one there for me in a year?” Instead, the convention has been dominated by talk of immigration, Benghazi, and Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. Even last night’s lineup, which was supposed to be focused on “Making America Work Again” included very few speeches on the economy.

The glimmer of good news for Trump Republicans in all this, Ruffini says, is that millennials are still a relatively small slice of the voting population, despite being the country’s largest demographic.

That may comfort the delegates who made Trump their nominee last night. Tough luck, kiddos.

#NeverTrump Crowd Tweets Its Feelings After Trump Nomination

Tonight did not go according to plan for the #NeverTrump crowd, the vocal but ultimately unsuccessful Republican faction that has vowed to, well, never support Donald Trump.

Tonight, a pro-Trump majority of delegates at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland nominated the New York businessman to be the Republican’s nominee for president in the 2016 election. Meanwhile, GOPers who see in Donald Trump’s tanned visage the demise of their party mourned on (where else?) Twitter .

Boy, the GOP’s Platform Really Rails on Public Transit

Gary Conner/Getty Images

Donald Trump builds things. It’s what the newly official GOP presidential nominee does, he says, and it will be no different once he’s elected. In May, he promised to “build the greatest infrastructure on the planet earth—the roads and railways and airports of tomorrow.”

And while Trump hasn’t put forward any specific proposals to change how Americans move—by automobile, plane, foot, bike, or public transit—the GOP’s newly released 2016 platform is openly hostile to just about everything but gas-loving cars.

Complaining that the current Administration “subordinates civil engineering to social engineering,” Republicans want to end all federal funding for mass transit, which they call “an inherently local affair that serves only a small portion of the population, concentrated in six big cities.” Never mind that federal dollars serve as a lifeline in states without many urban centers, and that rural transit ridership is growing.

The platform calls for the federal government to get the heck out of “bike-share programs, sidewalks, recreational trails, landscaping, and historical renovations,” arguing that money for these community game-changers should come from “other sources.” It encourages opening the Northeast corridor to private competition for publicly subsidized Amtrak. (That idea might get something of a test drive in Florida, where a luxe, privately-funded train system could start moving passengers between Miami and West Palm Beach next year.)

Cleveland Offers an Ingenious Fix for Thirsty Republicans

Things are heating up in Cleveland—and not just in response to Melania Trump’s perhaps-plagiarized speech. With the city experiencing higher temperatures than usual, the water department has implemented a clever strategy to keep the thousands of people in downtown Cleveland hydrated. Behold, the fire hydrant-turned-water-fountain:

Cleveland Water Commissioner Alex Margevicius says the department turned the hydrants into water-fountains in just a few days, installing two on Sunday and two on Monday. There’s another setup at the ready, should EMS request it. According to Margevicius, the department had the idea for the hydrant rigs following the success of its “water buggy“—a mobile water station with eight spigots—during the Cavaliers’ Championship Parade in June. The city rented three additional buggies for the RNC, but the repurposed hydrants win extra points for ingenuity.

The fountains will only be up until Friday, but until then, any Cleveland bystanders parched by the 90 degree heat can step on up and take a sip—even thirsty Clinton fans.

Melania Trump’s Suspect Speech Shows You Can’t Hide from the Internet

Melania Trump, wife of Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, waves to the crowd after delivering a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

And it all seemed to be going so well for the GOP, at least by 2016’s Trump-ian standards. A mini-rebellion quashed. A (duck) dynasty declared. And then this happened:

Yes, it would seem that would-be First Lady Melania Trump, the opening night headliner at the Republican National Convention, gave a speech that swiped several lines from current First Lady Michelle Obama’s Democratic convention speech in 2008.

To compare, start around the 4:38 mark:

Earlier on Monday in an interview with Matt Lauer, Melania said of the speech, “I wrote it with as little help as possible,” which will make it tough to place the blame for the apparent plagiarism on some speechwriter scapegoat. Regardless of who’s responsible, however, you’d think that person would have learned in the fires of the last year of campaigning that the Internet WILL FIND YOU OUT. It’s not like some poor production assistant had to go dig through some dusty vault in a CNN sub-basement to find the Michelle Obama footage. No New York Times intern had to hunt for the clip in the newspaper’s morgue.

Nope: it just took a guy with a few thousand Twitter followers and quick fingers minutes to screen-shot the similarities. From there, the retweets began. Cable news began to chatter. The video side-by-sides showed up, and they seem awfully incontrovertible:

And of course, as with any Twitter tempest, anticipation of the blame-the-media backlash has already begun.

1. it’s not plagiarism
2. it’s similar but the media is being cruel
3. it was written by a fired intern
4. but actually it wasn’t plagiarism

That sounds about right. But if it really was the fault of a fired intern, that person is probably sleeping warm and cozy tonight after playing a deeper game than any of us realize. Maybe that intern understands the Internet better than anyone. Maybe the whole GOP just got rickrolled.

Update (July 19, 2016, 2:15 AM ET): Trump campaign senior communications advisor released this statement: “In writing her beautiful speech, Melania’s team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking. Melania’s immigrant experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which made it such a success.”

Republican Convention Diary: Riot Gear and Hugs in Cleveland

Police with bicycles block streets in downtown Cleveland, Ohio during a protest against Donald Trump on July 17, 2016.Timothy Fadek/Redux for Wired

I did not expect my first day in Cleveland to end with a group hug.

And how could I have? Few weeks or months have been as grim as this one. When I landed in Cleveland for the start of the Republican National Convention earlier on Sunday, I looked at my phone to see that three police officers had been killed in a shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, just the latest in a string of tragedies that have crisscrossed this country and the world. Before that there was Nice, France and Dallas, Texas. There was Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. There was Orlando and San Bernardino and Paris.

For weeks leading up to the convention, all I’d heard was how ugly things were likely to get. I’d read about how the Cleveland Police Department had invested in thousands of sets of riot gear, steel batons, and flexible handcuffs. I’d heard about how the city was clearing out its jails. I’d seen the way photographers, like WIRED’s own, planned to pack for the four-day event: gas masks, helmets, Kevlar. Once I arrived, I’d spoken to a waitress at one downtown Cleveland restaurant, who told me she’d borrowed her brother’s bullet proof vest to wear home after her night shifts this week.

I expected protests, picket signs, and plentiful police in body armor. And for the most part, Cleveland delivered. I spent two hours Sunday watching an anti-Donald Trump protest marching through the downtown streets, and while it was peaceful, it was hardly polite. It was hardly just about Trump, either. While the explicit mission of the march was to “shut down Trump,” along the way, protestors also turned their attention to the nearest symbols of power, the police.

As hundreds of officers on bikes rode alongside, the crowd chanted lines like, “Hey hey, ho ho, these racist cops have got to go,” and “Unite. Convict. Send those killer cops to jail. The whole damn system is guilty as hell.” Two protestors plopped a paper machè pig down in front of a police line, and posed for photos. At one point, a group of protesters dressed in pink Statue of Liberty costumes stood face to face with a row of officers on horseback, singing “We don’t want, we don’t want, we don’t want any racist cops.”

Protesters with Code Pink prepare to march through downtown Cleveland, Ohio to voice their opposition to Donald Trump, on July 17, 2016.Timothy Fadek/Redux for Wired

All the while, the lines of police trained their gaze, and in some cases, their cameras, on the crowd. In preparation for the convention, the Cleveland police deployed a video unit, to balance out the thousands of cell phone cameras in the crowd.

Along the way, I met people like Harry Berberian, who said he was punched in the face while working security at a convention-related event last week, because, he says, the guy thought he was a cop. “He sucker punched me,” he says. Berberian still had the stitches over his eye to prove it.

I met people like Renla Session, a 60-year old auto industry worker from Detroit, who said of the police, “They’re not scared, they’re hateful.”

And as the crowd bashed Donald Trump with the chant “No Trump, No KKK, No fascist USA,” I met people like Kerry Zielinski, a 41-year old steel worker, Trump supporter, and Cleveland native. “I think it’s a bunch of horse shit,” Zielinski said of the protests. “If I see anyone burn a flag in front of my apartment, I’ll go to jail if I have to.”

There were skateboarding vigilantes with GoPros strapped to their heads, ready to record any roughhousing that went on and a ragtag group called Rust Belt Medics, who were there to provide volunteer first aid.

Thankfully, they weren’t needed. But it was just Day One. And even though the crowd was contained, it was clear that the animosity that’s been simmering between Republicans and Democrats, minority groups and the police, immigrants and citizens—and pretty much everyone this election cycle—has bubbled up to the surface in Cleveland. People on all sides are cautiously anticipating the boiling point.

So no, I didn’t expect the day to end with a not-so-brief embrace with perfect strangers. But that’s exactly what happened. After the protest ended, I wandered over to a free concert on Cleveland State University’s campus, where The Roots were scheduled to headline. Sponsored by The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the event focused on social issues including HIV and AIDS awareness, and the majority of the crowd, it seemed, was not in town for the convention. Between DJ sets and musical acts, a man named Ken Nwadike hopped on stage in a black T-shirt that read, simply “Free Hugs.”

Nwadike has become an unlikely YouTube celebrity over the last year, traveling to political rallies across the country, recording what happens when he offers perfect strangers a hug.

“Anytime I see hate or tragedy or anything going on in the world, whether it’s shootings or terrorism or bombings, I try to go in and reverse that process by spreading as much love as possible,” Nwadike said, before telling everyone in the audience to turn to a stranger and hug it out. And the craziest thing was that we didn’t roll our eyes. We didn’t laugh. We hugged each other. Sure, it was a gimmick. But damn if I didn’t need it. After the last few weeks, I think maybe we all do.